Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Allow
me to say to each and everyone of you, how very proud I was of every
participant in this great musical! From the start, I knew with Shirley
Basfield Dunlap and Melvin Miles leading the production, that this
Morgan musical was destined for success, however, I did not know to what
extent this would be the case. By most accounts, this was the best
musical that the Morgan Fine and Performing Arts department had ever
produced!

I
must say that I was a bit concerned when days prior to the show
advanced tickets sales were slow. I think that you would agree that
“we" culturally procrastinate in committing to productions like this
(God forbid something else comes up). We all knew that the Thursday
matinee would be close to sold-out before the first ticket was sold.
However, as late as the day before opening night, we had sold as few as
two hundred seats for opening night. Bringing André De Shields in for a
cameo appearance and a city proclamation, we were concerned whether the
opening night audience attendance might disappoint Mr. DeShields.
Well, by the start of the opening-night show, 589 tickets were sold. In
fact, this was the trend: last-minute walk-up attendees would flood
the ticket booths, to increase attendance by one-hundred percent or
more. There were over fifteen hundred in attendance during our final
show!

Now
of course, we had a great team getting the word out about this
production, but I believe that the main reason for this incredible
attendance is the powerful phenomenon of “word of mouth”, i.e.,
persons who came to the show, told their friends that they must come to
Murphy, and they did so… This is the “old-school" way of going viral.
When you have a good product, it is is easy to sell. Thank you for
producing such a great product.

The
singing, acting, costumes, choreography, and orchestra were “off the
hook!” This was the perfect show for Morgan's sesquicentennial
celebration. I could go on and on about this production, but at the end
of the day, this production truly was a celebration: a celebration our
Morgan’s one hundred and fifty years, as well as a celebration of the
human spirit.

As
chair of this great department, I thank you for a stellar production. I
pray that you all have memories about this production, that will last a
lifetime!